A long-vacant lot in the shadow of City Hall is being converted into an “art park” — but some downtown Los Angeles residents and a powerful union aren’t pleased about the deal and how it went down.
The nonprofit AltaMed Health Services is paying the city $175,000 to lease the two-acre space on 1st Street and Broadway through next February. At the site, AltaMed plans to build “El Corazón Art Park,” featuring an art gallery to showcase Mexican and Chicano works, 30 boxed trees and a health center — along with a 20-foot video screen.
The plan has faced backlash from some community members frustrated about a deal they feel was hashed out behind closed doors. Residents had long been promised a city-owned and operated park at the lot, and some fear AltaMed has more permanent plans for the space.
“For a half-century this space has been surrounded by beautiful buildings and parks, and it is a failure that it has not been utilized,” said Jens Midthun, the head of the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council. “We want the people who are going to use the park to be a part of the process. That’s not what happened this time.”
AltaMed runs more than 40 medical centers in Southern California, with nearly 6,000 employees. It targets Latino and multi-ethnic areas as part of its declared mission to eliminate disparities in health care access.
Its chief executive, Cástulo de la Rocha, served on Mayor Karen Bass’ transition team after she won the mayor’s race in 2022. De la Rocha and more than a dozen other executives at AltaMed also gave the maximum $1,800 in individual contributions to Bass’ reelection campaign, contributing a total of more than $34,000 to the mayor’s campaign coffers.
Bass supported AltaMed’s plan for its benefit to the community, said spokesperson Kolby Lee.
“This is a no-brainer — this vacant lot has sat empty for decades,” Lee said in a statement. “It’s about time that Los Angeles — a city that is nearly 50% Latino of which 70% are of Mexican descent — has a museum that honors and uplifts Chicano and Mexican Art.”
Physician Marie Flores, right, examines patient Karla Olguin, 35, left, at an AltaMed clinic in Pico Rivera on Aug. 31, 2021.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
In a statement, AltaMed’s vice president of public affairs Christina Sanchez said the park will “transform a long-underutilized downtown site into a vibrant, publicly accessible space offering free arts, recreation, wellness, and diverse cultural programming for Angelenos and visitors.”
Sanchez added that the project will be operated at no cost to taxpayers and went through the city’s public review process. The company also met and spoke with residents and neighborhood organizations as part of the process. The park is expected to open in the next few months.
Along with downtown residents, the project has triggered opposition from the powerful Service Employee International Union, Local 721, which represents more than 100,000 public sector employees in Southern California.
In a statement to The Times, a spokesperson for SEIU 721 said the union opposed the park because many of its members live in downtown L.A. and support the development of a public park at the site. The union represents 2,300 city Recreation and Parks Department workers.
The union contends the plan should have gone through a stricter environmental review and that the company had not been clear on whether it planned to charge the public for events in the park. The union also questioned AltaMed’s plan to have health services available at the art park, its hopes for a long-term lease of the site and the company’s plan to have a 20-foot digital billboard for sponsors as well as for content about art, culture and sports at the park.
Like AltaMed, the union has also backed the mayor. Since May, the union has given $300,000 total to two independent expenditure groups working to get Bass reelected.
AltaMed is a non-union health services provider and has clashed with SEIU 721’s sister union, SEIU-UHW at the state level.
AltaMed didn’t directly answer some of the union’s claims, directing The Times to a statement the nonprofit provided.
“AltaMed has been clear that El Corazón Art Park is a temporary activation that directly aligns with AltaMed’s mission,” Sanchez also said in her statement.
The lot’s modern history begins with an earthquake.
The two-acre space was the site of the California State Building, which suffered systemic damage in the 1971 Sylmar earthquake and was demolished five years later.
It lay idle until 2013, when the city bought and cleared the space for $10 million and announced a plan to turn it into a park as part of former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s “50 Parks Initiative,” which sought to add more small parks to the city.
The plan was celebrated by the steadily growing number of downtown residents eager for more open space in a “park-poor” neighborhood.
Construction workers began work on the AltaMed art park.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
The city held a competition to design the park, and former City Councilmember José Huizar announced the winner with a press conference on the empty lot in 2016. At the time, he said the park was expected to be completed in 2019.
It would have hosted a restaurant, walking paths and green space, and even metallic structures resembling flowers that would have collected solar power to generate energy for the park.
The city had about $20 million set aside for the park, but the costs for actually building it were higher, officials said.
In 2023, the park plan was put on hold due to lack of funding. The money that had been set aside for it was moved to other projects, including the park under the Sixth Street Viaduct.
The dirt lot remained.
As early as 2024, AltaMed was coming up with plans for the space behind the scenes at the highest level of city government.
“Our CEO, Cástulo de la Rocha, has already mentioned the project to Mayor Bass, and she has expressed interest,” wrote AltaMed’s legislative manager in an October 2024 email to a top Bass aide, which was viewed by The Times.
In a September 2025 email to an assistant general manager of the parks department, AltaMed presented the city with a plan for a 35- to 55-year ground lease for the lot, on which it would build its Chicano museum as well as a restaurant, bar and on-site clinic. In earlier emails to the city, the nonprofit projected it would cost $218 million to build the underground parking, storage, theater and library for the museum.
A map plan of AltaMed’s temporary art park at 1st Street and Broadway, across from City Hall.
(Board of Recreation and Parks Commissioners)
At the end of its emailed proposal, AltaMed had a simple ask.
“Respectfully, we request from the City of Los Angeles and the Department of Recreation and Parks: A long-term ground lease of the site at a minimal cost,” the organization wrote.
But in February, when the Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners took up plans with AltaMed, the plans had shifted. AltaMed now requested approval to build a pop-up art park at 1st Street and Broadway for just a single, yearlong lease.
It was initially proposed as temporary event space associated with the 2026 FIFA World Cup, but plans were never completed in time for that to happen.
Construction workers begin work on the AltaMed art park.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
At the center of the park, the nonprofit planned to build a 30-foot tall “heart structure” that would “project content about art, culture, wellness, sports and sponsor recognition,” the Board of Recreation and Parks Commissioners wrote in a report approving the project.
The plan, the parks board report noted, was supported both by Bass and Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, whose district includes the site.
Jurado said the temporary art park would make good use of land that has been fenced off and unused, but stressed that her office will ensure a transparent process for the long-term use of the lot.
“From the beginning, I made clear that my support for the temporary activation was dependent on a robust community engagement process,” she said. “That support is limited to this temporary use of the site and should not be interpreted as support for any future permanent proposal.”
Downtown Los Angeles Residents Assn. member Leslie Ridings.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
The Board of Recreation and Parks approved the plan with AltaMed in May, granting it a lease into 2027.
The Downtown Los Angeles Residents Assn. suggested in a letter to the city in April that the temporary nature of the art park could be “serving as a bridge to something more permanent before the public has had a fair opportunity to weigh in.”
“We’re asking for a full, fair and transparent process for the long-term use,” said Cassy Horton, a co-founder of the resident association.
In May, the same month that the city parks board approved the plan, SEIU 721 entered the fray, appealing the board’s decision to the City Council. The council rejected SEIU 721’s appeal in late June, allowing the project to move forward.
Four days after the council vote, Leslie Ridings and Horton of the residents association stood outside the fenced off lot as two men with the group Vincor Construction ambled about driving stakes into the ground.
Horton conceded that it might be better to have the art park on the space than a dirt lot, but she said the abandonment of the public park was a sign of the city failing the downtown community.
“This pattern of moving funding away from long-promised community-supported projects is a huge concern for the neighborhood,” she said.
